Waymo's self-driving van not at fault, in manual mode during crash, police say

Waymo, formerly known as Google's self-driving car project, released video of a crash involving one of its self-driving minivans that occurred Friday, May 4 in Chandler, Arizona.

The video shows a silver Honda run a red light, avoid striking a red car entering the intersection, jump the medium and crash into Waymo's Chrysler Pacifica minivan. The Chandler Police Department reports in a Friday news release that Waymo's Pacifica was in manual mode and not at fault in the crash.

Police say that the driver of the Pacifica "sustained injuries which required hospitalization," and that the driver of the Honda was cited for a red light violation.

"Today while testing our self-driving vehicle in Chandler, Arizona, another car traveling in an oncoming lane swerved across the median and struck our minivan. Our team's mission is to make our roads safer - it is at the core of everything we do and motivates every member of our team," Waymo told an ABC News outlet in Arizona.

"We are concerned about the well-being and safety of our test driver and wish her a full recovery."

The five-second video posted below contains crash footage from the vantage point of Waymo's Chrysler Pacifica:

"The silver Honda continued eastbound and entered the intersection on a red signal. As the Honda was traveling through the intersection, a vehicle began to proceed northbound through the intersection on a green signal. The operator of the Honda was forced to swerve to avoid striking this vehicle," police report in the release.

"Upon doing so, the silver Honda drove over the raised median and continued traveling eastbound in the westbound lanes of Chandler Blvd. From there, the Honda struck a white Chrysler minivan (Waymo autonomous vehicle), which was traveling westbound and slowing for the red signal at Los Feliz Dr."

Back in October 2017, Waymo conducted the first public road tests with no one in the driver's seat in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler. The vehicle in use, and the thousands more coming to Waymo, were developed in Novi and manufactured in Windsor, Ontario, Canada.

The company started testing its self-driving minivans on public roads in Novi, Michigan in late 2017. The testing in Michigan marked new territory for Waymo as the company was looking to test its software on the state's unpredictable winter roads and the cold weather experience.

This made Michigan the sixth state to allow Waymo to test its self-driving software on public roads. Waymo plans to open its autonomous ride-hailing service at some point in 2018 in Phoenix.

In a safety report, Waymo details the procedures behind each of its different tests for its technology. On public roads, each vehicle will have a "highly-trained" driver inside. Waymo reports that the self-driving minivans are equipped with its software that has been tested on 5 million miles of roads, and billions of miles in simulation.

Google's former self-driving car project started with about 600 Pacifica minivans, and recently said it would buy "thousands" more from FCA and add 20,000 Jaguar I-PACEs to its fleet within the next few years.

Waymo's crash comes on the heels of a March 18 crash in Tempe when a self-driving Uber struck and killed a woman who was crossing the street outside of the crosswalk while walking a bike. Police said that Uber was not at fault for the crash, but later released a video that showed its human backup driver distracted prior to the collision.